Peter Jackson Really Is Planning A Third Hobbit Movie After All

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. will let Peter Jackson go back on set, shoot some more for The Hobbit and get three, not two films out of the story if:

the right financial arrangements can be achieved.

What strikes me about this turn of events is that Jackson himself is behind the initiative.

Where it was been studio figures behind the decision to make Kill Bill into two films and double-up on the final chapters of the Harry Potter, Twilight and Hunger Games series, this split comes at the behest of the man actually directing the films.

This new report says that Jackson has come to a conclusion, and an unnamed source (who could well be Jackson himself, Fran Walsh or Philippa Boyens) has said:

It’s about taking the chance to tell more of the incredible tale with the cast we have assembled.

They know what they’re doing, I’m sure. If they want three pictures, I want three pictures. If they’re going to build the third film’s worth of material – however it is distributed – out of more from Tolkien’s original text of The Hobbit, I’m up for that; if they’re going to dig deeper into the Rings appendices, to which they also own the rights, I’m up for that too.

Though, you know, it’s maybe the second of those options that I find the most intriguing.

The extra shooting would take place next summer, though it’s said that a decision will have to be made soon. Watch this space.